Quote Origin: Worry Is Like Paying Interest On a Debt You Don’t Owe

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Mark Twain? William Ralph Inge? Harry A. Thompson? Havelock Ellis? Anonymous?

Symbolic representation of debt from Unsplash

Question for Quote Investigator: Excessive worrying is debilitating to one’s mental health. Upsetting scenarios are often sidestepped, and the anguish was unnecessary. Here are three examples from a family of pertinent sayings:

(1) Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due
(2) Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe
(3) Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe

This notion has been attributed to U.S. humorist Mark Twain and U.K. minister William Ralph Inge. However, I have not seen a solid citation. Would you please explore the provenance of this family?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in 1905 in “The Saturday Evening Post” of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which printed a collection of humorous definitions including the following three items. Boldface added by QI:1

Ability — The explanation of your success.
Luck — The explanation of the other fellow’s.
Worry — Interest paid on trouble before it falls due.

Harry A. Thompson received credit for this collection of definitions. Thompson was the associate editor of “The Saturday Evening Post”,2 and he is the leading candidate for creator of this quip although it remains possible that Thompson was simply compiling existing jokes.

The attribution to Mark Twain is unsupported. The quip does not appear on the Twain Quotes website edited by Barbara Schmidt.3 Also, the quip does not appear in the large compilation “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips” edited by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger.4 Twain died in 1910, and an attribution to him occurred in 1936.

William Ralph Inge did use an instance of the joke during a speech in 1932, but it was already in circulation. Thus, Inge helped to popularize the quip, but he did not create it.

Here is an overview of current research presenting a sequence of examples with dates, attributions, and phrasings. These sayings are not equivalent, but QI believes they evolved from a single seed expression:

1905 Nov 25: Harry A. Thompson
Worry—Interest paid on trouble before it falls due

1906 Sep 20: Attributed to Harry A. Thompson
Worry is the interest paid on trouble before it is due

1920 Sep 02: Anonymous
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due

1932 Feb 09: Speech delivered by William Ralph Inge
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due

1936 Jun 23: Attributed to Mark Twain
Worry is the interest paid on trouble before it is due

1955 Oct 06: Letter to the Editor from E. A. Bontrager
When you worry you just pay interest on nothing

1961 Oct 19: Attributed to Havelock Ellis
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it is due

1980 Apr 30: Anonymous
Worry is like paying interest on a debt you don’t owe

1982 Sep 22: Newspaper column of Rusty Hofacket
Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe

1988 Jun 11: Attributed to Mark Twain
Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe

1990 Jan 15: Slogan on refrigerator
Worrying is like paying interest on a debt you may never owe

2014 Oct 05: Attributed to Mark Twain
Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.

Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.

In 1892 a precursor expression appeared in “The Daily Huronite” of Huron, South Dakota. The statement mentioned “interest paid” and “trouble”, but the meaning was somewhat different:5

The interest paid on borrowed trouble is one of the worst of burdens.

In November 1905 a match occurred in “The Saturday Evening Post” within an article titled “Sense and Nonsense: Some Definitions” by Harry A. Thompson as mentioned previously:6

Worry — Interest paid on trouble before it falls due.

In December 1905 “Hampton’s Kingston Mercury” of Kingston, Missouri reprinted the definition above together with other definitions while acknowledging “The Saturday Evening Post”.7

Harry A. Thompson published a book titled “The Cynic’s Dictionary” which was reviewed in “The New York Observer” in September 1906. Two examples from the book were reprinted:8

“Repartee,” says Mr. Thompson, “is the retort you think of on the way home.” Other definitions are equally terse and epigrammatic. For instance: “Worry is the interest paid on trouble before it is due.”

In 1911 the “New Ross Standard” of Wexford, Ireland printed the following instance without attribution:9

Worry is generally interest paid on trouble before it is due.

In 1920 a newspaper in Balaklava, Australia printed an anonymous instance using the phrase “comes due”:10

Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due.

In February 1932 “The Shields Daily News” of Northumberland, England reported that William Ralph Inge delivered a sermon about worry which included an instance:11

“Christ condemned worry as a sin — perhaps He was the first to do so. And what good advice this was!

“‘I have had many troubles,’ said someone, looking back on his life. ‘Most of them never happened.’ Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.”

—Dean Inge, addressing young people at St. Paul’s Cathedral last night.

In May 1932 the widely distributed magazine “Reader’s Digest” printed the following:12

“Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.” — Dean Inge.

In 1936 the popular syndicated newspaper column of Joseph Fort Newton attributed an instance to Mark Twain:13

Mark Twain said that the worst troubles he ever had never happened; worry is the interest paid on trouble before it is due.

In 1943 “Thesaurus of Epigrams” compiled by Edmund Fuller contained an instance ascribed to Inge:14

Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.—Dean Inge

In 1955 a religious periodical called the “Mennonite Weekly Review” printed a letter to the editor from E. A. Bontrager of Fairview, Michigan which contained the following instance:15

The man that humbly bows before God is sure to walk uprightly before men. When you worry you just pay interest on nothing.

In 1961 a newspaper in Hammond, Louisiana attributed an instance to an English physician:16

Worry is interest paid on trouble before it is due. — Havelock Ellis.

In 1980 the “Chicago Tribune” of Illinois printed an instance formulated as a simile using the word “debt” while acknowledging another periodical:17

Worry is like paying interest on a debt you don’t owe.
— The Furrow

In 1982 columnist Rusty Hofacket printed an instance using the word “debt”:18

This only illustrates that worry is interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe. Sort of pay now, pay later.

In 1988 columnist Claude Lewis attributed an instance using “debt” to Twain:19

Mark Twain said many things but one of the most brilliant is that “Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe.”

In 1990 “The New Yorker” published a piece about a homebrew enthusiast who used the quip as a slogan:20

Pinned to Silman’s refrigerator is the official slogan of home brewing: “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew. Because worrying is like paying interest on a debt you may never owe.”

In 2014 a columnist in Pottsville, Pennsylvania attributed a concise instance to Twain:21

The wise Mark Twain wrote, “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

In conclusion, the earliest instance of this family of sayings appeared in November 1905 within “The Saturday Evening Post”. The author was journalist Harry A. Thompson, and the quip was formulated as a definition. Thompson included the statement in “The Cynic’s Dictionary” which he published by 1906. Hence, Thompson is the most likely candidate for creator. U.S. journalist Ambrose Bierce published a newspaper column called “The Cynic’s Dictionary”, but the content differed from Thompson’s. The attribution to Mark Twain is incorrect.

Image Notes: Symbolic representation of the interest paid on a real estate debt. Image from Kostiantyn Li at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Christian JB whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Additional thanks to researcher Barry Popik who previously explored this topic and found helpful citations beginning on March 2, 1906. Thanks also to “The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs” which contains an entry about this saying beginning with a 1909 citation.

  1. 1905 November 25, The Saturday Evening Post, Sense and Nonsense: Some Definitions, Quote Page 22, Column 1, The Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  2. 1919 December 6, Advertising and Selling, Former Editor Joins Erickson Agency, Quote Page 48, Column 2, Advertising & Selling Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  3. Website: TwainQuotes.com, Editor: Barbara Schmidt, (QI searched the website for “interest paid”, “trouble before”, “debt you”, “never owe” and found no pertinent matches), Description: Mark Twain quotations, articles, and related resources. (Searched December 19, 2024) link ↩︎
  4. 1948, Mark Twain at Your Fingertips by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger, (QI searched the book for “interest paid”, “trouble before”, “debt you”, “never owe” and found no pertinent matches), Cloud, Inc., Beechhurst Press, Inc., New York. (Verified with search) ↩︎
  5. 1892 February 4, The Daily Huronite, (Filler item), Quote Page 2, Column 1, Huron, South Dakota. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  6. 1905 November 25, The Saturday Evening Post, Sense and Nonsense: Some Definitions, Quote Page 22, Column 1, The Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  7. 1905 December 1, Hampton’s Kingston Mercury, Some Definitions (Acknowledgement to Saturday Evening Post), Quote Page 5, Column 3, Kingston, Missouri. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  8. 1906 September 20, The New York Observer, A Glimpse of the Book Table: Volumes Received From Many Publishers, Start Page 373, Quote Page 374, Column 3, New York, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  9. 1911 May 5, New Ross Standard, Woman’s World: Win Cheer For Yourself, Section Supplement, Quote Page 3, Column 5, Wexford, Republic of Ireland. (British Newspaper Archive) ↩︎
  10. 1920 September 2, The Wooroora Producer, Crumbs Swept Up, Quote Page 3, Column 7, Balaklava, South Australia, Australia. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  11. 1932 February 10, The Shields Daily News, Far and Near: Dean Inge on Worry, Quote Page 2, Column 6, Northumberland, England. (British Newspaper Archive) ↩︎
  12. 1932 May, Reader’s Digest, Volume 21, Number 121, Patter, Pat Aphorisms of the Month, Start Page 107, Quote Page 108,  The Reader’s Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
  13. 1936 June 23, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Commentary On Matters Of Daily Life by the Rev. J. F. Newton, Quote Page 4D, Column 6, St. Louis, Missouri. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  14. 1943 Copyright, Thesaurus of Epigrams, Compiled by Edmund Fuller, Topic: Worry, Quote Page 316, Crown Publishers, New York. (Verified with scans; HathiTrust) ↩︎
  15. 1955 October 6, Mennonite Weekly Review, Correspondence, Letter Location: Fairview, Michigan, Letter Date: September 15, 1955, Letter From: E. A. Bontrager, Quote Page 8, Column 4, Newton, Kansas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  16. 1961 October 19, The Hammond Vindicator, Quotes assembled by Old-Timer, Quote Page 7, Column 4, Hammond, Louisiana. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  17. 1980 April 30, Chicago Tribune, Smile, Section 2, Quote Page 9, Column 5, Chicago, Illinois. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  18. 1982 September 22, Deming Headlight, Comments by Rusty by Rusty Hofacket, Quote Page 12, Column 1, Deming, New Mexico. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  19. 1988 June 11, The Philadelphia Inquirer, If you want opinions, here are some by Claude Lewis (Inquirer Editorial Board), Quote Page 7-A, Column 5, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  20. 1990 January 15, The New Yorker, The Talk of the Town: Home Brew, Start Page 32, Quote Page 33, Column 1, The New Yorker Magazine Inc., New York. (Online New Yorker archive of digital scans) ↩︎
  21. 2014 October 5, Republican Herald, Slice of Life: Alfred E.’s message: Why worry? by Donna Pinter PhD, Quote Page D5, Column 1, Pottsville, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
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